NARATHIWAT — A truck driver was shot dead for failing to speak Yawi and his vehicle was set on fire by insurgents who had blocked a road to carry out the attack before making off with 120,000 baht in Rueso district on Saturday.
The incident occurred around 3.30 pm on the Rueso-Talorhalo Road in tambon Sawor, said Pol Col Ruengsak Buadaeng, chief of the Rueso police station.
Police and soldiers rushed to the scene to inspect but a roadside bomb went off while they were on their way to the area. The officers narrowly escaped injury.
When they got to the scene, the officers found the 10-wheel truck with a Yala licence plate engulfed in flames. Fearing an insurgent trap, the officers put logs on the road to prevent people from passing through the area.
Authorities found the body of a man, identified later as truck driver Prasert Boonyarak, 43, lying face-down in a pool of blood. The driver had sustained three gunshot wounds to his neck and back.
A police investigation found that Mr Prasert and three other men had travelled on the truck from a warehouse in Muang district of Yala to deliver rice in Rueso district. After delivering the rice, they were travelling back to the warehouse, but their vehicle was forced to stop by a group of five armed men, who emerged from a roadside hideout and blocked the road.
The men held the driver and his three helpers at gunpoint and forced them to get out of the truck. They then asked the four men to speak the Yawi dialect. All but Mr Prasert could speak Yawi, prompting one of the armed men to fire three shots at him, said police.
The attackers then snatched a waist bag from the slain driver before pouring petrol on the truck and setting it on fire and fleeing.
Another group of attackers planted a homemade bomb on the road leading to the scene. The bomb was remotely detonated by a mobile phone when vehicles carrying the investigating officers arrived. Nobody was injured.
The body of driver Prasert Boonyarak, 43, lies near his burned truck in Rueso district of Narathiwat on Saturday. (Photo by Waedao Harai)